Page 398 of Face Off

I drop the letter on the couch, pull my phone from my pocket, and find her name before caution catches up.

My thumb stops above the call button.

Permission doesn’t remove the fear.

Letters don’t demand anything in the moment. They don’t expose hesitation, catch a breath, or leave silence breathing between two people while neither knows what comes next. If I call her, there is no polished version of us. Charm and I will stand inside whatever happens when distance loses its armor.

I look at the antique compass resting beside the photographs she sent.

Its needle remains steady.

Her towel picture is still hidden inside my bedside drawer because leaving it anywhere Briggs might discover it would end with one of us dead. The photograph of her wearing my jersey stands against the lamp, her body wrapped inside my name while she smiles over her shoulder.

She told me I could come home.

She told me she would answer.

I press the button.

The phone rings once.

My pulse strikes hard beneath the tattoo on my neck.

It rings a second time while I imagine her staring at my name.

The third ring begins.

Maybe she is in the shower. Maybe she is at the boutique. Maybe she wrote the letter while feeling brave and regrets every word now that it is inside my hands.

The fourth ring starts.

I lower the phone before her voicemail can answer. I don’t want a recording of the voice I have been missing. I want her uncertain breath. I want the pause before she says my name. I want something alive.

My thumb moves toward the screen as the ringing stops.

For one terrible second, only silence stretches across four hundred miles.

Then her breath reaches me.

“Hello.”

33

Ryan

I close my eyes. Nearly two months of letters disappear beneath one word, leaving every part of me exposed to the sound of her breathing.

“Charm.”

“Ryan.”

My name moves through her voice with enough need to tighten every muscle in my body. I sit on the edge of the couch with her letter beside me and listen to the faint rustle of fabric on her end.

Neither of us asks how the other has been.

There is no cautious discussion about whether calling was the right decision or what hearing each other means for the future. The silence already knows why I called, and Charm’s breathing tells me what she wants from it.

“Where are you?” I ask.